<\/p>\n
Take a couple hundred prostitutes, erotic dancers, and prostitute rights activists from around the world:\u00a0 a gaggle of anarchistic, proudly caustic social outcasts — mostly women — who are used to being ignored, discredited, stigmatized, and dismissed, and who have a real taste and genius for stirring up the soup.\u00a0 Put them together with a couple hundred university-based academics and researchers — mostly men — who take for granted being treated with unquestioned deference and respect, who like to keep their professional and personal interactions polite, linear, and rational, and who are (for one reason or another) fascinated with the whorearchy.\u00a0 Shake and bake.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s ICOP \u201897, the International Conference on Prostitution.\u00a0 Jointly sponsored by Cal State\/Northridge\u2019s Center for Sex Research and the Los Angeles chapter of COYOTE (the main U.S. prostitute rights organization), it\u2019s billed as a unique opportunity for current and former prostitutes, prostitute rights activists, researchers, academics, legal experts, and social workers \u201cto meet each other, present their work, and exchange information on their methods [and] results.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sounds like one of those sweet\/crazy scenes with a finger on the fluttering pulse of the world\u2019s schizophrenic love-hate relationship with sex.\u00a0 And the underlying issue — the way sex workers, forever dismissed as subhuman beings as punishment for their unsocial sexuality, are banding together and demanding to be seen, respected, and taken seriously — has resonated in my gut for a decade.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t miss it for the world.<\/p>\n
* * * * *<\/p>\n
Waiting for the hotel shuttle in the deserted Van Nuys Airport parking lot, I meet three women from London also headed for the conference.\u00a0 They look at me somewhat suspiciously when I say hello.\u00a0 One comments to no one in particular that she didn\u2019t know there were going to be any men<\/em> at this conference.\u00a0 After a little regular and distinctly respectful (on my part) small talk, they lighten up a bit.\u00a0 Or maybe it\u2019s just their getting to puff cigarettes after 16 hours in no-smoking hell.<\/p>\n At the hotel, the three Londoners and a group of Asian women who speak almost no English move quickly ahead of me while I\u2019m still figuring out which is the registration line.\u00a0 All sorts of women in the lobby are having joyous reunions with lots of smiles and hugs.\u00a0 It is the gathering together of a far-flung tribe, and it\u2019s clear that my place as heterosexual male supporter\/observer\/reporter is distinctly on the periphery.\u00a0 Fair enough.\u00a0 Feminism is alive and well among those whom the anointed Feminists denounce.\u00a0 As one British whore says later, \u201cnever have I seen in one place so many independent, feisty strong and beautiful women in control of their own minds, desires, bodies, and finances.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s what I call a feminist.\u201d<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n There are 65 workshops with over 275 presenters squeezed into this two-and-a-half-day gathering.\u00a0 The first one I go to is on \u201cSex Work and the Disabled.\u201d\u00a0 Sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen talks to a small but attentive group about how professional sex with disabled people means getting comfortable with a lot of new things in hurry.\u00a0 Catheters, urine bags, and bowel irregularities, for starters<\/p>\n Humor and creativity, she prescribes, as if we are all about to go out there and do this work ourselves.\u00a0 But watch out for the spasms, she warns.\u00a0 \u201cI learned the hard way not to put my breast in the mouth of a client with jaw spasms.\u00a0 Also, after I almost has my jaw dislocated, I decided never again to put my head between the knees of a client who spasms.\u201d\u00a0 We get the picture.\u00a0 On the other hand, she tells about the wonderful time she once had, pressing a client\u2019s arm against her clit so his spasms could make her come.\u00a0 \u201cIt gave him a sense of power,\u201d she observes matter-of-factly, \u201cto know that he could give pleasure to someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n Tuppy Owens, presenting at the same workshop, has worked for years with handicapped people in London.\u00a0 She praises as \u201csex angels,\u201d the neighbors, friends, and hospital staff who are willing to masturbate people who are unable to masturbate for themselves.\u00a0 Certainly as powerful a gesture of random kindness as scratching a paraplegic\u2019s nose or escorting someone in a wheelchair to the bathroom, but not so commonly offered.\u00a0 Tuppy talks about one man whose arms were so short that his hands were effectively coming out of his shoulders.\u00a0 She asked him if he masturbated with his feet, a question that, frankly, would never have occurred to me.\u00a0 \u201cYes, of course,\u201d he replied as if that much were obvious, \u201cbut hands are better.\u201d<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n At a workshop on \u201cProstitution\u2019s Place in History,\u201d Elizabeth Clement reads a paper on \u201cProstitution and Working Class Women\u2019s Sexual Morality, New York City, 1900-1940,\u201d in that uniquely crisp, clipped academic cadence university conference-goers know so well.\u00a0 I learn that prostitution was accepted as commonplace and no big deal throughout working class New York around the turn of the century.\u00a0 Whores worked out of a myriad of small hotels, and out of candy stores and ice cream parlors as well.\u00a0 But what about the children??!!\u00a0 Seems that tenement families commonly had the whores watch their children while they were waiting for clients, an arrangement that gave the mothers free child care and the whores a legitimate reason to be sitting around if the police came by.\u00a0 When the whores scored a client they sent the kids back to their moms, picking them up again when they were done.<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n A plenary panel brings together some of the more publicly notorious prostitutes and madams, including COYOTE founder Margo St. James, Xaviera Hollander (the Happy Hooker), Dolores French (author of Working<\/em>), and Sydney Biddle Barrows (the Mayflower Madam).<\/p>\n French explains how she first went public as a prostitute in 1982, using her real name when she appeared on the Donahue show.\u00a0 \u201cI wanted to prove that a prostitute does not necessarily wear hot pants, Tammy Faye mascara, and have 5\u201d nails,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Margo St. James notes that during her recent campaign for San Francisco Supervisor people tried to discredit her by claiming that she had never really been the whore she claimed to be.\u00a0 \u201cIf the only way they could discredit me was to say I wasn\u2019t<\/em> a whore,\u201d she laughs, \u201cthen we\u2019re really winning the battle for destigmatization.\u201d<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n At a workshop on \u201cThe Client,\u201d Hugh Loebner, prominent among the few talkshow johns, calls on clients of prostitutes everywhere to come out of the closet about paying for sex.\u00a0 At Stonewall, he notes, gay people \u201cgained their freedom by speaking, nay, shouting out.\u00a0 Now it is our turn.\u201d\u00a0 An annual coming out demonstration is scheduled for June.<\/p>\n Loebner also reports on prostitution among the Bonobo chimpanzees, confirming an old notion of mine that every sexual variation can be found somewhere in the animal kingdom if you look hard enough.\u00a0 Male Bonobos, it seems, will dangle dead meat in front of sexually aroused females, letting the females eat only after they have sex with the males.\u00a0 The males are also more likely to hunt when there are sexually active females around, knowing that it\u2019s the guy with the Porsche that\u2019s most likely to get laid.<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n It is illegal to enter the U.S., even temporarily, if you are a prostitute, like it is illegal to enter the country if you have AIDS.\u00a0 How to have a real international presence at the conference?\u00a0 \u201cThe university people wanted us to tell the women to deny being prostitutes on their visa applications,\u201d COYOTE organizer Norma Jean Almodovar explains, outraged at the thought.\u00a0 \u201cBut most of the women were going to acknowledge being prostitutes in their presentations.\u00a0 They could all be prosecuted for perjury, and me for advising them to lie.\u00a0 Would they ask a group of sociologists to perjure themselves?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think so.\u00a0 But it\u2019s ok to ask whores to lie because of who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n Barbara Boxer\u2019s office advises that the women can get visa waivers if they have letters officially inviting them to speak at the conference.\u00a0 When the university organizers drag their feet, not wanting to take what they call a political stance, Almodovar sends the invitations herself, commandeering university letterhead.\u00a0 The women get their waivers.<\/p>\n (Even with waiver in hand, a Nicaraguan prostitute on her way to the conference is twice pulled out of line and interrogated by INS in Miami.\u00a0 She misses her flight, stays in the airport overnight, and arrives late to the conference.\u00a0 Speaking through an interpreter at the conference Awards luncheon, she tells her story in tears and anger.\u00a0 She is given both a standing ovation and a COYOTE award for bravery.)<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n Fred Cherry, 71, a vocal prostitution activist who suffers from chronic malabsorption syndrome (he was once 5\u201910\u201d and 98 pounds), loves to talk about having sex with prostitutes.\u00a0 His first sex was with a prostitute, he says, solicited by his mother, who \u201cdidn\u2019t want me to starve,\u201d sexually as well as nutritionally.\u00a0 He has been fighting for decriminalization of prostitution since 1962, when he was hooted down for suggesting at an ACLU meeting that they take a stand on the issue.\u00a0 Fred has come through with a lot of money for this conference.\u00a0 He also happens to be rabidly homophobic, railing about how gay sex clubs get away with things that heterosexuals get busted for, and much more.<\/p>\n \u201cHe may be a homophobe,\u201d Almodovar says while presenting him with a conference award, \u201cbut he\u2019s our<\/em> homophobe.\u201d\u00a0 When he seizes the mike and starts to rant, she affectionately but firmly pulls him away.<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n \u00a0 Almodovar has scored a big coup by getting Joycelyn Elders, the surgeon general Clinton canned for wanting to tell kids about masturbation, as keynote speaker.\u00a0 COYOTE has unilaterally raised $10,000 to cover Elders\u2019 fee.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know why a conference of hookers would invite Dr. Elders to speak,\u201d Almodovar quips in her introduction.\u00a0 \u201cMasturbation could single-handedly put us out of business.\u201d\u00a0 Elders gets a conference award.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t get too many of these,\u201d she smiles.<\/p>\n Elders is not used to talking to a group more radical than she is.\u00a0 When she raises the specter of six-year-old children forced into prostitution and speaks of how \u201cpoverty is the real crime of prostitution,\u201d she is greeted with silence instead of applause. The notion that prostitutes are typically broken, coerced, and in need of rehabilitation is as seriously retro here as the notion that black women are basically welfare cheats.\u00a0 Elders catches that something is amiss and shifts gears.<\/p>\n \u201cMany women marry for money,\u201d she booms, her hands moving dramatically through the air.\u00a0 \u201cTo me that\u2019s just one more form of prostitution.\u201d\u00a0 Applause gratefully breaks the tension.\u00a0 \u201cTell it like it is, sister,\u201d a very white woman next to me calls out.<\/p>\n \u201cIf two consenting adults choose to have sex\u201d Elders goes on, gathering steam, that should be none of the rest of our business.\u201d\u00a0 More applause.\u00a0 And then, finally, the words everyone is waiting to hear:\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got to go about decriminalizing all aspects of adult prostitution.\u201d<\/p>\n She gets a long standing ovation.\u00a0 This is a movement with precious few public allies.\u00a0 Lots of people arrange to get their pictures taken with her.<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n It is the final round of workshops, including a huge panel on \u201cThe International Sex Worker Movement.\u201d\u00a0 Yaoska Villavicencio, the Nicaraguan woman detained by immigration in Miami, is speaking when hotel workers suddenly begin pulling down the walls of the room in preparation for the conference\u2019s closing plenary.\u00a0 The activists on the panel, incensed all weekend at not getting the translators they were promised, refuse to be cut off.\u00a0 University organizer Vern Bullough pulls rank and insists that the session end immediately.\u00a0 The women are not having any of it.\u00a0 They scream at him in Spanish.\u00a0 \u201cTell them to go to hell,\u201d he replies.<\/p>\n Villavicencio is in tears.\u00a0 \u201cWhy did you give me an award?\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cWas it so that I could endure so much humiliation.\u201d\u00a0 The Latinas start chanting in the hallway.\u00a0 Bullough, at his wits end, abandons the final plenary altogether, declares the conference over, and leaves.<\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n Success or fiasco?\u00a0 Most people don\u2019t seem phased by the conflict.\u00a0 People got mad at each other; happens all the time.\u00a0 Steph Walker, a prostitute rights activist from Britain, is unambiguous in her enthusiasm.\u00a0 \u201cThe conference has changed my life,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cMy emotions ran from inspired, joyful, celebratory, and proud to angry, saddened, burnt out, and vulnerable and I would change none of that. I have instilled in me now a sense of real trouble<\/em> making<\/em> which I shall hold onto and feed on a regular basis.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Realist<\/em>, Summer, 1997<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 1997 David Steinberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/p>\n Take a couple hundred prostitutes, erotic dancers, and prostitute rights activists from around the world: a gaggle of anarchistic, proudly caustic social outcasts — mostly women — who are used to being ignored, discredited, stigmatized, and dismissed, and who have a real taste and genius for stirring up the soup. Put them together with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-essays","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/loveandlust\/davidsteinberg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}